Introduction

During the last decades, research and development (R&D) activities have be-come the most substantial pillar of innovation research in the attempt to explain the innovation ability and competiveness of enterprises, sectors and economies (T

eece

1986; B

rown

/E

isenhardt

1995; F

reeman

1994a, 1994b; F

reeman

/S

oete

1997; R

osenthal

1992; S

aviotti

/N

ooteboom

2000; S

tock et al.

2002; OECD 2005; R

ammer et al.

2009; S

antamaría et al.

2009; R

aymond

/S

t.

P

ierre

2010). There is a vast amount of empirical literature that supports the importance of firm-internal, institutionalised R&D activities as the main source of many, productivity-enhancing, technological innovations to im-prove competitiveness, especially of fast growing industries such as pharma-ceuticals, automobiles, computers, communications, instruments, and machinery (B

echeikh et al.

2006; F

reeman

1994a; F

reeman

/S

oete

1997). “There is ample empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that R&D expenditures are a sine-qua-non for the firm’s level of innovation activities” (S

hefer

/F

renkel

2005: 25).